


In the Time of Kings

by meradorm



Category: Medieval Manuscript Illustrations
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:16:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 8,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meradorm/pseuds/meradorm
Summary: In the time of kings there lived a monk called Brother Euthery.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneiriad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/gifts).



> It's worth saying that some theorize that the events of the 14th century, especially the Great Famine and the Black Plague, cleared the way for Europe's successes, for instance, ending serfdom by increasing the value of laborers (since there weren't as many workers left among the living); increasing literacy among the masses due to the deaths of literate religious (who needed to be replaced), or by raising philosophical questions that would influence medieval thought as far as the coming Enlightenment. It's up to you whether or not you agree with such an idea.

 

Robert Spelethorne had a piercing headache. It had a cleansing quality to it, something appreciated in these dark days. He looked down at it all, the golden tray of unleavened bread, each wafer small enough to fit in his palm.

    _Take this, all of you, and eat of it:_
    _for this is my body which will be given up for you..._

"The Body of Christ!" he called.

He took in a breath. Time to begin.


	2. Chapter 2

In the time of kings there lived a monk called Brother Euthery. He was young, a little thick around the middle, and had a face that was kind, tending towards servile, which isn't a bad quality in those made in the image of our Lord, who favored the meek. It was easy to tell from his honest face and careful mannerisms that he always thought of others rather than himself, that he attended well to his prayers, and that his heart was stalwart and true, or to put it in practical terms, he caused so little trouble at the monastery that he was more or less left to his own devices, a rare gift in the ecclesiastical life.

 

Before moving southerly to an English abbey, Euthery had grown up close to the Scottish border, and he knew of a ballad that happened to travel back and forth between Scotland and England.

 

_Did ye ever travel twixt Berwick and Lyne?_

 

It occurred to Brother Euthery at some point that there was in fact a  Lyne in Enland as well as Scotland, and if you had a little imagination you could say that the abbey was betwixt them. (Though rather closer to Lyne - they were almost on top of Runnymede.)

 

_Sober and grave grows merry in time._

 

With that in mind, Euthery (who had a very workmanlike idea of the word "fun") thought it would be a possible source of amusement during the long winter to start in on the project suggested in the song.

 

_There ye’ll meet wi a handsome young dame,_

_Ance she was a true love o mine._

 

It was harmless play, supposed Robert Spelethorne the abbot, so long as it didn't take up too many resources.

 

_'Tell her to sew me a holland sark,_

_And sew it all without needle-wark.'_

_And syne we'll be true lovers again._

 

It took Euthery a little effort, but he managed to bang out a length of flax and affix it into the shape of a sark shirt (sort of) with the paste they used for bookbinding.

 

_‘Tell her to wash it at yon spring-well,_

_Where neer wind blew, nor yet rain fell._

 

The abbey's property included a flood-meadow and a stream that fed it that went dry in the winter, and to give them the water they properly needed during that time there had been a first abortive attempt to dig a well. It so happened that this well had been dug at something of an angle as the monks sought in frustration to hit the groundwater. There was a little bend, then, and Euthery believed in good faith that that bend had never been rained on or ever felt the wind. With the help of his baffled yet entertained brothers and a length of good strong rope, Euthery managed to lower both himself and the shirt down to it.

 

A dust bath would suffice.

 

_Tell her to dry it on yon hawthorn,_

_That neer sprang up sin Adam was born._

 

If you managed to collect enough hawthorn berries, the seeds unripe inside (and this gathering managed to occupy Euthery for longer than he would have liked), you could spread the pile of them out on the ground and manage to raise a shirt up a little. Enough to count, he felt, and the dust would be caught on the wind.

 

_Tell her to iron it wi a hot iron,_

_And plait it a' in ae plait round._

_No one ever said it had to look good._

_Did ye ever travel twixt Berwick and Lyne?_

_There ye'll meet wi a handsome young man,_

_Ance he was a true lover o mine._

 

And so Euthery folded up the charred mess he called a shirt and put it at the foot of the bed in his cell, and then, content in the knowledge that he had at least amused his brothers for a while, he went to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Euthery never, as a rule, slept well. Father Abbot made it his business to know, in the dead of night if need be, the precise status of the baron, who had begun to speak (in the faintest and most subtle ways) of revolt. Aside from being caught in an institution built in part for the purpose of praying for a deposed baron, at the slightest notice the abbey could be overrun with the wounded, the fleeing, and the dead - a finger on the pulse is sensible, and Euthery admired him for it. 

 

But a single whisper of the unrest anywhere in the abbey seemed to wake Brother Euthery up, God love him, and when Euthery was startled out of sleep that night for an unknown reason he didn't think much of it - just put his straw pillow against his ears and pressed his face to the mattress. It didn't half help. He had the feeling of being watched.

 

He skipped the preamble of trying to convince himself it was nothing, sat up, and lit the tallow.

 

Brother Euthery was assistant to the cellarer, and as such he had a desk in his cell, so that he could attend to the stock-keeping and accounting, and his devotions required a little reading and writing when necessary. It was a simple thing. 

Or it usually was. Today that desk had a dozen snails spread across it, and on their backs they trailed a long string of silver and gems that sparkled in the light like pinpricks. It looked something like a lady's headdress.

Brother Euthery brought the candle close. 

 

 

On the backs of the snails were - he wasn't sure whether to cover his eyes or look closer - tiny, naked women, straddling the snails like horses.

 

The woman on the frontmost snail, far ahead of the others as if an advance guard, stopped. She looked up at him, and he saw her tiny, flashing eyes.

She dismounted, and then stood up - 

 

-and Brother Euthery was faced with a fullsize woman in his cell. 

 

Larger than that, even. She stood a head or two above him, perhaps as tall as twenty hands, and that silver headdress was now on her sleek black hair, which was long enough to brush against her heels. She had a thin pale nose that turned down like a hawk's beak, and her blue eyes were dark and narrow, and her lips were slim and strangely bloodless, and Brother Euthery was not looking at any of this at all considering the fact that she was still without clothes.

 

"My name is Nennoc," she told him. "I've come here to wed you."

 

Brother Euthery completely failed to rise to the occasion in any way, and instead spluttered out the sensible thing:

 

"I can't be wed! I'm a monk!"

 

That was not the reaction they were expecting.

 

There was a buzzing noise amongst the snail riders, which Brother Euthery supposed was heated conversation. Nennoc's slender mouth turned upwards.

 

"Do you know that song was never about a mortal man and a mortal girl? You're entitled to an elfin bride. I, Nennoc, a queen among my kind, have volunteered myself."

 

She leaned forward a little bit, giving Brother Euthery a paternal look, as if trying to prompt him. 

 

Euthery had no idea what to make of this - of any of this! - and decided to start with identifying and solving the closest problem at hand. 

 

"Look, you're not to be in a state of undress in the abbey at all - "

 

"So clothe me."

 

"You're not wearing that," said Euthery, pushing the charred lump he called a sark under the desk with a foot. "You've got to leave - oh, you're not going to leave, are you."

 

Nennoc slowly shook her head.

 

"...How long are you planning on not leaving for?"

 

Nennoc didn't reply.

 

The gears in Euthery's head start to turn. "Should you be after sanctuary of some kind, this is God's house and far be it from me to deny you a bed. There's a nunnery across the way - "

 

Euthery froze. 

 

"...relic is worth a small fortune, if we must, then surely it would be enough to sustain the baron as - "

 

He recognized the soft, contemplative footsteps of Father Abbot, the low murmur of a second voice, no doubt a messenger in the halls - if he could keep her silent for just a moment, they would walk on past the cells - 

 

Nennoc let out a piercing scream. 

 

Euthery just managed to throw his blanket over the procession of snails before the abbot and his messenger burst in the room. 

 

The abbot's eyes moved from Euthery and the girl and back again. He opened his mouth to speak, but Nennoc was sobbing too loudly for anyone to get a word in edgewise. She threw herself at the abbot's feet.

 

"Father Abbot! I'm a lady of Cornwall, traveling by night." She did have a Cornish accent, which was getting thicker by the minute. "We were beset by bandits upon the road. They took all I owned, even the silk from my body. I've been running all night. When I

saw the abbey I thought there'd be none at the door. By the grace of God I spied a window I could slip inside..." (There wasn't a window anywhere near his cell, but the abbot didn't seem to - how _did_ they get in?, Euthery stops to wonder.) "If you'll only shelter me for long enough to write to my sister at Tintagel!"

 

The abbot bid Euthery turn to face the wall, sent the messenger to alert the shire-reeve to a stolen carriage on the road, and within thirty minutes had half the nunnery awake and running to get her a habit to cover herself. (Her legs stuck out.)  A meal and a bed and the sympathy that women have or other women was being prepared for her. The Mother Superior put a hand on her shoulder, leading her away. 

 

Euthery snuck a look at Nennoc as she left. The noises she had made had been authentic enough, and those were real tears, but the expression on her face had been perfectly calm, which would have ruined the illusion if not for the confusion of the moment. 

 

The stranger winked.


	4. Chapter 4

The abbey wasn't an abbey proper, at least not yet. The baron had allotted a princely (perhaps baronial, actually) sum of money to the development of a community to pray for his family and to care for pilgrims coming to see the relic, but it was growing at a slower pace than the baron would have liked. As it was, it was classified only as a priory - Robert Spelethorne, the abbot, had but nine brothers living under his watch, an equal number of sisters in an adjacent plot who answered to a prioress, and he had taken on a few more servants and laity than he really needed to run the operation. This gave the monks a little extra time to farm flax up on the hill, tend to the sheep at the bottom (where the floodwater soaked the grass), and to work quietly in the cavernous scriptorium which seemed as if it would never fill, copying books. All of these were moneymakers, but slower to gather than a pilgrim's fee. The abbot seemed concerned, and Euthery, who loved him, was touched by the paternal and Christian interest in the continued existence of their community and the monks who depended on the abbot, for even a man like the baron would return to dust, and who knew who would take his place, should he lose his little war?

 

Euthery kept his ear to the ground, though he was listening, of course, for other reasons, and hid his impatience whenever he heard talk of politics. (His heart fluttered in his breast whenever he thought of his real secret.) He managed to learn that the sisters found Nennoc pleasant in a regal sort of way, but standoffish. She spoke poor English, worse French, and almost no Latin, and she was reluctant to pray in front of other people, and when pressed, seemed barely to know her prayers at all. Still, she ate little, showed no attachment to the warming-house (the only place in the abbey a fire was lit, save the kitchens), and did whatever she was asked of, which did much to endear her to the community. Euthery had taken that same path to it himself.

 

Slowly, Euthery - who was so preoccupied with the Divine Office, which had him up before dawn and asleep long after dark - began to relax into his position and release a tension he had hardly known was there. Nennoc made no indication that she had come for him, and he would have assumed she had completely forgotten about him, except for her entourage of riders.

 

Nennoc's coterie had never left his cell. Tents had sprouted up on his desk, and campfires ("Tis only fox-fire, sir Monk"), and the scent of anise rose from their strange cooking. The snails were stabled on a leather cincture he had left crumpled up on the desktop, which he now regretted. All of Nennoc's riders were women, and they rode naked, and around camp wore rough clothing that looked more like rope. He was fascinated by the white scars on their bodies, particularly around their stomach and thighs.

 

One night, after Vigils, one of Nennoc's handmaidens was spinning wool (wool?) on a tiny wheel, a thimbleful of water at her feet. (Over the past few days Euthery had learned not to ask too many questions. He figured the elves had raided the sheep-fold.) The handmaiden had pale orange hair, and a strong-boned sort of face, though thin and wan, as if she'd only just recovered from an illness or an injury in battle. She was talkative and gregarious, but never smiled, and her voice was rough and low by nature, making it difficult for Euthery to tell whether she liked him or not. He had come to recognize her as Wenna. She didn't mind him watching her. 

 

Euthery's bones ached, but he wanted to warm his hands over the cool green flames, forbidden as it was for a monk, who were to face the elements close to bare. And some part of him, he knew, must desire this company, to stand like a river rock in the ebb and flow of others. He liked hearing idle conversation, the mending of the tents, the riders helping each other carry scraps of vegetables bigger than they were for their snails. The creation of a secret had separated Euthery from his brothers, and from the night he met Nennoc onwards he would have to seek it elsewhere. 

 

It occurred to him that perhaps the secret to this intimacy was that he desired it from women.

 

"You've caused a dip-lo-matick incident, sir Monk," said Wenna, as if she'd just learned the word and liked the way it felt clacking on her teeth. 

 

"Oh no," said Euthery. "What have I done this time?"

 

"D'you know there's a second part to the old ballad?" 

 

"A second part - " Euthery's eyes widened. "Of course."

 

_Did ye ever travel twixt Berwick and Lyne?_

_There ye’ll meet wi a handsome young man,_

_Ance he was a true lover o mine._

_Tell him to plough me an acre o land_

_Betwixt the sea-side bot and the sea-sand, -_

 

"I was supposed to ask her for something in return, wasn't I? To plough a field on the ocean shore, to reap it with a sickle of leather, or whatever - "

 

Wenna spun in pointed silence.  

 

"It doesn't matter how I was supposed to respond," Euthery insisted. "She's got my answer."

 

"You never really said no to the mistress," Wenna told him. "Only that you couldn't so long as you were a monk."  

 

"And I well intend to stay that way. What kind of refusal must I give her, then?" 

 

"Oh, the time has long passed for that one. And the time has long passed for you to say yes. No one knows what to do with you, sir Monk."

 

"And what should I do with myself?" 

 

Wenna scoffed. "You're asking me! Well, the men'll be coming soon, I imagine..."

 

"Men? What men?" 

 

Wenna pretended not to hear him. Euthery gave up for the night.

 

(They weren't really going to leave him so quickly, were they?)

 

Nennoc (small once more) came out of her tent naked and with wet hair (Euthery rather hoped the demystification of the female form helped him keep his chastity, and somehow, he felt it did). She seemed to like to slip in here late at night and be with her ladies-in-waiting. Or perhaps with him.

 

"Might you get those snails out of here?" Euthery asked, though he had asked this a few times before and at this point the exchange was perfunctory. Still, he did begin to worry, whenever Nennoc came from the other side of the abbey to them. "Do you have any idea what they'll do if they catch you shrinking down to the size of a mouse and commiserating with naked elves? They'll hang you as a witch."

 

Nennoc smiled to herself. "No, they won't."

 

"They certainly will."

 

"Oh, I expect I'll find some way to get out of it."

 

"I'm trying to protect you!"

 

"You're doing a very good job," said Nennoc softly, with the slightest of smiles still on her face. Euthery felt condescended to. Nennoc got down on one knee by Wenna's side. "Wenna, braid my hair," she ordered, quietly. "Finish pinning it up, and put a veil on me."

 

"Your headdress?"

 

"A true veil."

 

The snail riders were as loyal and true as the best of knights. Wenna moved her things to the side and attended to her with a deep and wordless calm. Failing all else, Wenna was her queen's man, and Euthery understood that there was no place that she would rather be. 

 

"I'd ask a favor of you," Nennoc said, turning her face up to Euthery.


	5. Chapter 5

The chapel was not going to be a grand building. Not yet. It had been put up as quickly as possible, and there was still the smell of a draft where the small stone building had been improperly mortared. One of the walls had to be redone. 

  


"I can't see it almost at all..." said Nennoc in a low voice, peering around Euthery, studying even the floors and ceiling as closely as she could. (Both were painted with scenes of battle and triumph - the Archangel Michael above, the late King Richard on the tiles below.) "It's this veil. Is it supposed to prevent you from seeing?"

  


Euthery had never thought about it much. What women were supposed to do and feel in prayer was never something he thought to pay attention to. "It's to prevent others from seeing you," he guessed. 

  


"No one's in here," said Nennoc, pulling it off.

Euthery was surprised (and somehow, faintly honored) that he didn't count. "None but the Lord," he reminded her.

"So is it to keep God from seeing me?" Nennoc asked.

  


Euthery considered it for a moment.

"I don't know."

He raised the candle up for her a little higher, though. Nennoc balanced easily on his shoulder.

  


The reliquary had been placed on a small shrine. In the candlelight, the silver dulled, making it into a murky reflective surface that was to Euthery somehow both more humble and more divine. Their two dark shapes rolled across it like thunderclouds, as if showing them a picture of their own immortal souls. The reliquary was formed in the shape of two hands, and in the hands were placed a communion wafer, a single drop of blood in the center.

  


"They asked me if I was making a pilgrimage to see it..." Nennoc explained, peering close.

  


"It's a miracle," said Euthery. "Father Abbot told us that the blood appeared on the Eucharist before he blessed it. It seemed to fall from the heavens like rain." 

He felt a wild stirring in his heart. He always did, when he spoke of it. 

 

He moved closer, bent his knee, whispered, "Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end," and moved to sit in one of the rows. He and Nennoc fell into silence.

 

"Make me a Christian," Nennoc asked. 

 

He looked at her. "I didn't know you wanted that."

 

"Does it trouble you? Will you say we don't have souls?"

 

"Someone," said Euthery, "in our hall of books must have written at great length on that, and the conclusion they came to is probably that only man is given a soul. But I," he told her, "respectfully disagree."

 

He got up. "I'll baptize you. Come to the holy water."

 

He lifts his hand, and bade her sets her down on the plainstone font. "Be careful," he told her. "It's cold."

 

Nennoc lowered her head. Euthery cupped his hand and poured a little water over her, careful not to overwhelm her. "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." Nennoc shivered, but held still. Euthery did it twice more, and then stepped back to watch her, as if proof of her conversion would be shown on her face.

 

"Is that it?" Nennoc asked. "I don't mean that in a way that's disrespectful. I'm only wondering if it's so simple."

 

"Yes," said Euthery, "In the name of the Lord, it is that simple." 

 

He knelt down by the font, letting her smooth the water from her long braids. She said nothing, and made no move to climb back on his shoulder. Euthery let her think.

 

"Rain is falling," said Nennoc, after a while. 

 

"Is it? I can't hear it through the roof."

 

"You can smell it, though."

 

"I can," said Euthery, realizing.

 

He had chosen a life of contemplation for just the moment, rare in his life but ever increasing, when the grace of God washed over the hills and the flood-meadow, and he understood - truly understood, beyond faith and beyond philosophy - that another world walked alongside them, not quite in lockstep, with nearly silent feet. And to do it as one of the ordained meant that he could share it with her. 

 

Euthery hesitated, just then. "Nennoc," he asked, slowly, "you really are taking sanctuary here from something, aren't you?"

 

Nennoc lifted her chin, paused to think for a long moment (she always thought before she spoke, no matter how long it took), and just before she opened her mouth, a wild knock sounded at the monastery door.


	6. Chapter 6

Brother Euthery hurried, Nennoc hidden in his hood, but Brother Richard, who had been awake in private vigil, made it first to the door.

 

There was a knight standing there, his arms crossed round his body in the freezing cold (Euthery saw with sinking heart that the knight was as tall as Nennoc). In spite of shivering from head to toe (his mud-covered greaves clacking), he bowed gracefully when Richard opened the door.

 

"Forgive me, sirs, but..."

 

He took off his helmet.

 

"My name is Sir Meredith Patil."

 

The knight had brun skin, short black hair that curled around his face like a girl's, and hollow eyes that gave him a troubled, vulnerable look. He was perhaps younger than even Euthery, stick-thin, and soaked to the bone.

 

Brother Richard was taken aback. He gave Sir Meredith's lanky form a very long up and down look. "Forgive me," he said, "but I've never seen a man with such as an appearance as yours..."

 

"I'm from Wales, sir," Meredith explained.

 

Brother Richard took a moment to process this. 

 

"Do you have business with the abbot, then?" Brother Richard asked.

 

"I have business with the woman you're sheltering in these halls."

 

"Are you a messenger from her family at Tintagel?"

 

Brother Euthery, hovering several paces behind Brother Richard and trying to seem inconspicuous, caught the knight's eye and nodded frantically.

 

"No," said Sir Meredith, "I'm just her knight."

 

Brother Richard turned round. "Are you quite all right, Brother?" he asked Euthery. Euthery was about to speak (although he hadn't yet decided what on earth he was going to say) when the three of them heard a shout from out on the roads - "Don't let her get stuck in the mud, then!"

 

"What is that?" Meredith asked. 

 

There's the sound of horses, screaming rope, the repetitive clunk of wooden wheels. Something is coming along the way, larger than any carriage.

 

In silence, the three men watched a group of the king's men go past the monastery on the main road, the one leading to the castle. Torchlight flickered in the rain, went out, was lit again. Behind them, horses pulled a massive trebuchet, running deep grooves into the mud. 

 

"They're moving siege weapons by night," said Brother Euthery. "Why?"

 

"You know why," said Brother Richard. Are you with them?" he asked Sir Meredith, and Euthery thought he picked up a note of warning in his tone. 

 

"They don't know me. Please, we must hurry."

 

"I'll wake up the Lady Nennoc," said Euthery. 

 

"Don't," says Brother Richard. "It won't do to disturb a lady at night. Make Sir Knight comfortable for the evening. We'll have this sorted in the morning. I must see Father Abbot."

 

Euthery stayed as still as a startled rabbit until Brother Richard was gone, and then he exhaled, shoulders slumping.

 

"Let me give you some advice," he said, "We're monks. It's not "sir", but "Father."

 

Nennoc's long nails sunk into him. He felt her scrabble up his habit and crawl onto his shoulder. "It's you!" she said. Euthery couldn't read her tone. If anything, it was a declaration of fact. "I am a Christian woman, and you'll not come here for me."

 

"Is that so?" asked Sir Meredith, looking shocked.

 

"I thought that, if anything, would deter you."

 

"I am at your service," said Sir Meredith, a certain tiredness in his voice. "As I forever shall be. But I beg you, reconsider! The course of action you're now on will be the death of us, and the death of all of Britain."

 

"We're not talking about this in front of the entire abbey," said Euthery firmly, clapping his hand over Nennoc (she made an indignant sound). "Why didn't you come in the same way as the snail riders?" (How did they come in, anyway?)

 

"I'm a knight," Meredith explained, and it occurred to Euthery that he said this the same way Euthery said 'I'm a monk.' "I won't trouble men of the cloth by sneaking in their back door."

 

Euthery realized that the young knight had no common sense at all.

 

"Come into my cell."


	7. Chapter 7

The snail riders had the desk, and so the paladins bivouacked on the small crate that held all of Brother Euthery's worldly possessions, that is, a change of clothes and nothing else. (Euthery insisted on getting them out first, and his second habit and scapular now lived in a pile on the floor.) There wasn't enough of a distance between both parties, and the riders came out to watch with disdain as fox-fires were lit and tents erected. Whatever decision Nennoc had made (and whatever Sir Meredith had come here to protest) had unanimous support among her women. The paladins, shadowy things who seldom spoke and did most of their work in perfectly coordinated silence, ignored the occasional taunt or curse from the riders' side. Euthery wondered if they were even capable of responding. 

 

Euthery brought Sir Meredith and Nennoc spiced honey water. Being the cellarer's assistant had a few perks. Nennoc had grown again, the better to look the young knight in the eye.

 

"Would anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Euthery asked. Nennoc gave him a nervous look, perhaps an apologetic one. Euthery hadn't known she was even capable of such an expression, much less aimed at him, and he tried to hide his surprise.

 

"The lady Nennoc is a queen of our kind, and a woman besides. We were a pagan people. We believe that the touch of a woman expands and purifies the soul." He casts a look at his paladins, a painful one. "I was like them once. Like Guencor and Deheweint. She made my life fertile, my body whole."

 

Euthery closed his eyes. Then he saw it, in his limited terms, in a way he could understand - 

 

 

_On the right side of the temple he saw something enormous, like heaving earth. The women had hunted a red deer, breathing its foggy last into the winter air. To the sound of the drums, the old woman cupped the blood in her hand, and turned it over on the rocks, and it sizzled in the campfire with a smell like burnt meat._

_And I saw water flowing from the right side of the temple,_

_her name was fire and his name was stone, and he did meet her there at the hinge of their bodies, and her breath was hot, and his breath in turn was warmed. They saw him wake in her body, Tot and Thunor did see it, and they saw that it was good._

 

Euthery opened his eyes again.

 

"You slept with her," he said.

 

Meredith turned a dark red.

 

"A knight awakens at the touch of his Lady. As queen, it's her sacred duty to raise an army, when Britain needs one. They won't stand up against the rebels the way they are now. They're not the size of the span of your hand." 

 

Euthery felt a jolt in his chest.

 

"So you've come into a holy place," asked Euthery, through his teeth, "to ask a lady to have some kind of pagan orgy?"

 

"It's not my will to have been made this way." Meredith avoided his gaze. "It is the only consummation of our being."

 

Euthery got up. "You can have a guest room," he said. 

 

"I don't need it. I'll camp with my men."

 

"Better that I can keep my eyes on someone like you, " said Euthery. "Nennoc, go back to the nunnery. They'll shelter you from him. I need to think."


	8. Chapter 8

Euthery didn't see either of them for a few days. People didn't like having a man-at-arms from unknown parts around, especially when his loyalties were suspect and his simple blade was meant for the work of armies and not for show. 

 

As soon as the lights were extinguished after the second nocturn, they lit back up again. Brother Iohannes was holding a vigil. 

 

There were rough men in the chapel, passing through, headed towards a battalion forming near London. 

 

(London! Of all places. Euthery had been there only once. He remembered mostly a lot of shouting, and the most terrible scents, and rotting, unsold meat thrown in the Thames. He couldn't imagine something of such human vulnerability as a single sword falling on a single head in a place of such overabundance. Still, as a man of conscience he knew that the streets of London were filled with souls, and real harm could come to any of them.) 

 

Euthery, and all the rest of his brothers and sisters, expected the men to make trouble. Yet they were mostly silent at this time of night, which was worse. Brother Iohannes had asked for prayers to be spoken throughout the night, mostly just to keep lights and eyes on them.

 

Wine had been drunk and wine had been spilled, and one of them had decided to swear himself to the Crusade. A ceremony was being held tonight. The man taking up the cross had had strips of cloth affixed to his haubergeon in the shape of the chi rho, ripped from a shirt or "borrowed" from the monastery's flax. Euthery had seen this ceremony once or twice, securing the spirit of what may have only been a drunk and boastful man. Who knew what morning would bring? In the light of the chapel, at least, it would be different for him. 

 

He lay outstretched on the cool floor, his arms spread in the shape of a crucifix, his cheek pressed to the stone. Iohannes led the monks present in the singing of a hymn as part of the oratio. (Euthery's eyebrows rose but a hair. Meredith was among their number, moving quietly to the southern line as they sang.)

 

_O Virgin Mother of God,_

_He whom the whole world does not contain,_

_enclosed Himself in thy womb,_

_being made man._

 

_True faith in thy begotten Son_

_has cast out the sins of the world_

_and for thee virginity_

_remains inviolate..._

 

The stranger closed his eyes.

 

The brothers kept their heads bowed. Meredith's armor glinted in the shuddering candlelight, and his bright eyes looked towards the heavens, mouthing the words. From the other end of the chapel Euthery couldn't tell if he sang or only wished he could. There were tears in Meredith's eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

Almost time for lauds. They'd have to clear the soldiers out of the church for the office, Euthery thought. Euthery had hardly slept, only slumped in a pew in the chapel, arms folded around himself, snorting awake whenever his head bowed. Meredith had kept leaning against a pillar all night, looking half at the relic shrine and half at nothing, as if he were waiting for someone. As far as Euthery knew, he hadn't moved at all. Only the soldiers slept well - in fact, some of them were still drinking.

 

Brother Iohannes, who had taken responsibility for these men so long as they were within these walls, moved from soul to soul, touching each shoulder, whispering that they were welcome to the service. 

 

They stirred, and the drinkers stirred with them. 

 

"We're still drinking to the man!" a soldier laughed, raising his tankard. "Where is he? Crying in bed? We all know you took up the cross because you haven't the guts to up against King John Softsword - too good for his own baron - " He gave the crusader a violent slap on the back, waking him up from where he had passed out into his drink.

 

"My sons!" Brother Iohannes began, reading out his spindly fingers. 

 

-and then Meredith moved.

 

"You've already spoiled a church with your drink - " He grabbed the drunkard by the back of the neck, slamming him down on his knees. "And now, and in the name of King John...!" He pulled his sword and raised it high. 

 

Brother Euthery grabbed his wrist.

 

" _No_ ," he said, harshly. "I would remind you all, brothers, that we here are men of the cloth, and our job is to tend to the wounded, bury the dead, and remain impartial. If you want to go to war, do it on profane ground."

 

He heard shuffling behind him. His brothers, and the Father Abbot, were at the entrance to the chapel, staring at him. 

 

At the sight of the abbot, Euthery's grip relaxed the way water rushes back into soil once you take your foot out of the mud. Meredith pulled his arm away, and most importantly, lowers his sword.

 

Had he really managed to stop a murder tonight?

 

Brother Iohannes floated into the center of the conflict, soothing nerves and gently reinforcing Euthery's politics. Meredith glanced towards Euthery, stealing an anxious look. "Thank you," he mouthed. 

 

Brother Euthery's opinion of him changed. 


	10. Chapter 10

The chapel never felt quite as serene after that. Something had changed in Euthery. 

 

He felt, somehow, more holy out in the rushes by the stream near the sheep-fold, and that was where he sat that evening, the sky blue with night. He stayed unmoving.

 

He heard footsteps behind him, which he recognized as Meredith's. Meredith was a lot of things, but he wasn't quiet.

 

"Are you well?" he asked, voice awkward, still standing several feet behind him.

 

"Sit down," Euthery said. 

 

Meredith did. Euthery didn't say anything for a while, and neither did he. The knight took a sprig of sweetflag and began wrapping it around his finger, making rings. He was in his tunic and braies. 

 

"Is your armor with Nennoc?" Euthery asked. 

 

"It's in your cell."

 

"Strange. I thought you'd trust none else with it." Euthery shifted his weight. "It's good you took it off. People were starting to wonder who could possibly wear full plate for so long."

 

"It's easier for me."

 

"I thought it would be." Euthery watches the river, and then watches Meredith watching him. "If not for this or that you'd be like any mortal man. And the ways you are different are hardly important."

 

"Are they? I needed to fornicate to win my body. I may not have a soul. I am like a beast of the field," Meredith said, his voice simple and calm. He dropped the broken stalk onto the ground and picked another one. 

 

"I too was conceived in sin," said Euthery. "We all are."

 

"It's not the same."

 

"No," Euthery said, although he couldn't quite explain why. "No, it isn't." 

 

"I'm sorry," said Meredith, out of nowhere.

 

"Would that have been your first time?" asked Euthery. "Taking a human life, I mean."

 

"It would have been the first time. Yes. Perhaps I don't know how to be a knight yet, although, you know, there's nothing else I can be." Meredith looked at him with his dark, thoughtful eyes. "I've never fought before. Things have died down in our own world somewhat. Once we lived separately from the children of men, to a much greater extent than we do now. Our gods were our own. So were our wars. You would never believe what we protected you from," Meredith told him.

 

"And now those of your kind you can almost pass for Cornish ladies and Welshmen."

 

"Almost pass," said Meredith, with a small smile, looking away. "Things have changed," he tells Euthery. "We won't live for very long. Soon will come a time when men will be capable of no faith in God." 

 

Euthery was shocked to imagine it. God's hand was everywhere - it pulled the very apple from the tree. To not be able to see these things, to feel them...!

 

"I couldn't stop believing in God any more than I could disbelieve the air in my lungs," said Euthery, ever a skeptic. 

 

Meredith skipped a rock across the flooded field, or tried to. It disappeared into the water with a plop. 

 

"You're welcome to use the confessional, you know," said Euthery.

 

"The fields are enough for a soldier," said Meredith.

 

Euthery nodded. "Take your time."

 

A warm wind blew. Meredith parted his lips, and seemed almost to be in communion with it. There was a sense of conversation.

 

"...A war is coming. John, King of England, will be the last true ruler of this land. They'll call it a treaty, but when he signs the Great Charter he'll be signing his name in the Book of Death. Should England lose the very concept of a true and absolute king, all hell will break lose. Our oracles have seen terrible things happen to London. Battle after battle. Skepticism and selfishness will be the rule. A cynicism has already set in in this country of men. I feel it wandering the abbey like an evil thread."

 

_Euthery saw the rotting meat in the foaming waters, and he saw that a plague had spread over the land, and that the bodies were human. He saw the land go untilled, and princes go on bended knee before the serf. He saw the meek inherit the earth, but his spirit was sick with love for the dead, and in God's silence he begged God..._

 

"And Nennoc can raise an army against it, if she only gives up her chastity," says Euthery, pressing forward.

 

"She is a Christian woman," said Meredith. "Before that, she was almost a married one. I can ask her of this no more."

 

Euthery felt his heart seize, in the selfish way of one who wants to keep love they have no intention of returning. "So that's why she tried to marry me. To get away from you." 

 

Meredith's lips thinned. "She believes that this is the natural order, that when the smoke clears, men will no longer be bound to the land, but have the freedom of God's own children. It will be a time of wisdom, with fear replaced with insight, and your world will move away from mine forever." He took in a small breath. "I myself was sworn to protect this land. Your kind and mine alike."

 

"Sworn to who?"

 

"To Our Lord Jesus Christ."

 

He wanted to ask about who was the vicar of Christ in this instance, what the ceremony was like, and when it took place, but he knew that Meredith was really incapable of explaining it to him. And Brother Euthery. He knew then that the nouns and verbs of Meredith's life, his court, his princes, the men and women he called his own, were always going to be a distant country to Euthery, and he was never, never going to understand him. 

 

"I can't raise an army through fornication. I have to raise it through faith. This is a test," said Meredith. He met Euthery's eyes. "Isn't it?"

 

Euthery wished he knew what to tell him.

 

"Meredith," he said, "Can I ask you something?"

 

"Of course."

 

"When you sang the antiphon, why did you weep?"

 

"Because of the Virgin, the eternal Virgin, who went undefiled. I wish she could have had that. I wish I could have given that to her."


	11. Chapter 11

 

Euthery had been given a lot to think about, and he didn't want to think about it alone. Yet alone he was, singing the Office, counting and recounting the goods in the cellar, feeding the ever-growing army. Spring was beginning, and they weren't worried yet, but in a couple of weeks they might be. The Benedictine Rule stated that he and his brothers should speak as little as possible, but this guidance was the one most oft ignored. Yet he really had no solace in them anymore - how could he even begin to explain himself? He wished he could speak with at least the Father Abbot.

 

Nennoc or Meredith (Euthery was curious to know which one) suggested to Euthery that they meet in the kitchens, long after the last meal. Euthery, as the cellarer's assistant, had every reason to be there, sort of, and as for the two guests, well, they could hide behind a pot if they needed to. 

 

"You know where the kitchen is," said Euthery, suddenly, in surprise. "You'd have dined with the sisters, not us."

 

"We came in through the fires," Nennoc said. "Your cell was close by. Because you like having the warmth through the walls," she teased. Euthery had been allowed to choose his own cell, as there were only five brothers in the prior at that time. 

 

"It's true," he admitted. Meredith looked disappointed in him. Nennoc just laughed.

 

"Now," said Euthery, settng a tray down before them. "I don't know what you like, but owing to your usual size I'm guessing you don't keep chickens. This is a hen's egg."

 

Euthery tapped the egg with a spoon. The shell cracked. 

 

"It's solid on the inside!" Meredith cried. Nennoc tried not to look impressed.

 

"It happens when you boil them inside the shells," Euthery explained. 

 

"We eat eggs, but only quail's eggs, and only raw," said Nennoc. "It's too hard to forage anything bigger. May we have it?"

 

"Of course," said Euthery. He peeled the egg, pulled it in twain, and passed one half over to Meredith, who gingerly took a bite, and almost dropped it. Nennoc caught it, holding it to his mouth. Their eyes met.

 

 

Euthery cleared his throat, and they remembered the two of them remembered they were in the company of a monk.

 

"It's good!" Meredith told him. Nennoc ate hers delicately. 

 

"Do you sing often?" Meredith asked Euthery.

 

"Just the Office these days."

 

"Do you dance?"

 

"It might be against the rules," said Euthery. "Though, I joined the Order some time ago. God will forgive me if I don't remember _all_ of them."

 

Nennoc claps hands together. "There's only one appropriate thing to do after a feast. Meredith, hold Euthery's hand, and I'll hold yours." 

 

Euthery was unsure exactly how hard he should hold a man's hand, but Meredith's iron grip (Euthery _really_ wished he had taken off his armor) solved that problem for him.

 

"Oh, I remember how to do this!" said Euthery. 

 

"Really? I've never done it," said Meredith, curious.

 

""You move in a round, and you strike one heel against the other, like this. And you sing. Meredith, sing us something."

 

Meredith's voice was quiet, unconfident. " _Merry it is while summer lasts_..."

 

"So you move left - left, Meredith! No, your other left!"

 

Nennoc shrieked.

 

"Ahh! I stepped on your foot! I'm so sorry!"

 

Euthery let go of his hand. "From now on, Meredith is taking off his sabatons before dancing."

 

"Right." He was blushing.

 

"Feels a bit odd holding your hand anyway," Euthery said with a blush. "Normally they pair you up woman to man. I felt a bit like a woman..."

 

"A woman is a wonderful thing to be," said Meredith. Nennoc watched them quietly.

 

"Ah, you know..." said Euthery. "It's just a silly thought, but the elfin knight isn't a bride, but a bridegroom. Did you ever think it could have been...?"

 

Meredith's face softened as he thought. "No," he said, "no, I don't think it could have been me."

 

Euthery felt a moment of terror as the appropriate thing to say in such a situation completely failed to come to him - but then there was a sound outside, of someone perhaps bumping into furniture, and they all went silent as a cat about to spring a mouse.

 

"...Whatever it was, it's gone," said Euthery, after nearly a full minute. "Let's all go back to our respective space."

 

Nennoc nodded, gave Meredith a kiss on the cheek, bent to give Euthery one too, and slipped out of the room. Meredith caught Euthery's eye just as he was leaving.

 

"I need your help," he said. 

 

Decades upon decades later, Euthery would know that the reason why he helped Meredith was because Meredith had asked him first.


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

Euthery stepped over the sleeping bodies in the chapel, stepping precariously on a sleeve. 

 

"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," he whispered, crossing himself. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be..."

 

He went slowly, pausing in the candlelight, eyes lifted towards the heavens, waiting for the calmness of God to come over him.

 

Then: to proceed.

 

The reliquary was kept unlocked. Whoever would disturb it? Euthery expected the sound of a latch, the rustle of his habit, but he lifted the Eucharist from the outstretched hands in profound silence.

 

"Here," he whispered, passing it into his hood. Dangerous to speak aloud, but he wanted to be reminded that he could still make sounds. Meredith took it from him with a grunt. It must be heavy at his size.

 

"Thank you," Meredith whispers. 

 

"Nothing left to do but pray we can hide it for a few hours. Let's leave."

 

Hours pass. Dawn light. Euthery and Meredith and the men were far down the spring road, in the warmish muck.

 

"I'm surprised no one stopped me," whispered Euthery. He felt blessed. He felt ill. "I walked in and took it."

 

"You're a man of God, on a mission from God. You have spiritual authority over them," Meredith whispers back. "Also, why are we whispering?"

 

"Oh, I don't know," said Euthery helplessly. He sat down on a rock alongside the road (careful not to upset any of the marching paladins) and held his head in his hands. "This is too much for me."

 

"It's not." Meredith sits down next to him, resting his hand over his. "You don't have to be here with us when we meet the baron's army. You can walk away."

 

"I can't."

 

"Give it to me now." Meredith shrank back down to the size of a field mouse. "I'm mounting it on a pole - well, a twig - as a banner. I'm staying this size. It's got to be all of us together." One of his men - Euthery had never seen any of their faces - brought Meredith his steed.

 

Euthery felt his heart stab. He was going to have to touch it again. He carefully drew from beneath his habit the communion relic, and he handed it to Meredith.

 

"In the name of the Grail..." Meredith whispered. "It's Christ's own blood!"

 

He raises his head towards Euthery and gives him a desperate look. "I hope you know," he said, "That I'll always consider you my friend."

 

All Euthery could do was nod. 

 

A few tense moments with rope and a pole - a mere twig. Euthery thought for a moment that he was going to break it, but no. The wafer and the drop of blood stood true in the morning light.

 

Meredith grabbed the saddle and leapt up on his horse. "We'll meet the army on the road," he said. "They should be coming through here in a few minutes..." His voice trails off as a tension filled the air, like a musician pulling a lyre-string taut and shaking. 

 

Euthery felt it before he saw it - a row of snails and their naked riders crawling out of the rushes, aligning in two rows across the road, creating a barrier. The paladins froze, then drew their weapons all in tandem.

 

Nennoc brought her mount to the space between the snail riders and the knights. As did Meredith. 

 

"And you think that God will fill your bodies with strength, and raise you to a great height, and you'll be giants to the men on the road?"

 

"All I can say to that is yes," said Meredith. He took in a breath. "Nennoc, there's still time."

 

"I've told you. As your friend, and as your queen. This is for the best."

 

"I believe you. It's that I can't..." His voice broke. "I just can't do it. I can't let so many people die for all that. But neither will I take your chasteness from you."

 

Nennoc nodded at her riders, and they tightened formation. 

 

"The only one I ever wanted was you," Nennoc said, cupping his face. It wasn't just her foresight and it wasn't just her body. It was the dignity of her love, Euthery realized. She wanted that. 

 

 

Meredith lowered the visor on his helmet. 

 

In the distance, Euthery saw the army at march. They're close now. Closer. They've got to get the snail riders out of the way - 

 

Meredith spurred his charge, and the horse bolted. His paladins laid into the formation of riders as if they had no fear of death, and, two of the knights flanking a rider, managed to push her away and break a space for him. Meredith bursts down the road, and Euthery - 

 

-Euthery remembered the conversation he overhead that faithful night.

 

His love for the Father Abbot...and yet, how could he have been so blind? 

 

"Meredith!" he called. "Meredith, wait! It's a fake! The Blood of Christ is a fake! Robert Spelethorne's selling it to raise an army - "

 

"Get out of the way, boy! We won't turn our soldiers for you!" call one of the advance guards, jeering. He worried the horse. "Faster! Faster! Onward to London!"

 

If the soldiers ever saw anything on the road as their hoofbeats pounded and trampled down the road to London, they never gave any indication, and one of them gave Euthery a good jab in the stomach with his polearm as they passed, laughing. Euthery fell into the mud at the roadside. He put his hand down in something that crunched. 

 

Euthery remembered what Meredith said to him, closed his eyes, and walked away. He didn't open them until after he had cleaned his hand in the river. 

 

* * *

 

 

That night Euthery dreamt of the ocean in collapse against the shore, of glaciers calving and fjords carved hard into the stone, and he felt something pass out of the world, perhaps, in the eyes of God, as quickly as it came. He understood that he had touched something, that it had been neither a blessing nor a curse to him, and he understood that he had loved them both. 

 

Whatever was supposed to happen to him from then on, both God and the elfin world gave him no sign. Except for that, at some point in time, the charred joke of a sark had disappeared from under his bed. And so that was the last of it. 

 

Euthery left to become a mendicant for a while, and not finding it to his liking, settled again in an abbey in France, where he would spend the rest of his days. He lived to be just over one hundred, and in the last years of his life, the young monks under his charge took notice of the knights and snails he drew all over his margins. For a while, before moving on to other things, they started to imitate him, although they knew not why. 


End file.
